Organizational Structures in County Governments in Kenya and Its Role on IFMIS Effectiveness

Main Article Content

Charles Musumba Wakhaya https://orcid.org/0009-0008-1645-8725
Donald Gulali https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6637-2283
Esau Mengich

Keywords

Integrated, financial management, information systems, organization structure, centralization, departmentalization

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine organizational structures in County Governments in Kenya and its role on integrated financial management Information system's effectiveness. Specifically, the study examined whether central or departmental structures had any role in the effective performance of the procurement, payment and budgeting roles. The study was anchored on structuration theory that states that organization structures had a dual role; of both being a consequence of the previous behaviors and predictor of the subsequent behavior of the staff toward operations in an organization. The study used a constructivist research philosophy. Qualitative research approach and multiple case design were adopted in order to generate vivid experiences and in-depth information from the participants. The participants were 17 directors who were purposively sampled from Mombasa, Nairobi, Turkana, Makueni and Baringo counties. The participants were exposed to key informant interviews which gave thick-rich information on usage structure of integrated financial management information system. The researcher also carried out natural observations to collect information on relevant features of the study in the study settings. The findings showed that centralization played a significant negative role on the effectiveness of IFMIS while departmentalization did not play any role in effectiveness of IFMIS in the counties. The study also revealed that the county government structures were weak. This negatively affected the integrated financial management information systems that manifested delays, low coverage of users, poor coordination and conflicts in usage. The study therefore recommends a national legislation that demarcates IFMIS roles of county governments finance departments against user departments and develop capacity of user departments to use IFMIS effectively. Further studies are recommended on the role of organization structure on the effectiveness of IFMIS in other state agencies other than the county governments.


 

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